


Latent Conviction

by TheDefenderoftheFaith



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Brotherhood, Family, Gen, Moral Dilemmas, people figuring themselves out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26307535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDefenderoftheFaith/pseuds/TheDefenderoftheFaith
Summary: There was one rule. One rule above all others that Nightwing would never break. Officer Grayson was not Nightwing.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & The Joker, Jason Todd & The Joker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 124





	Latent Conviction

“You shouldn’t have wandered so far from home, Hoodie!” A maniacal chuckle chilled Jason to the bone as Joker chuckled above him. “You have such _bad_ luck.”

Jason turned over, the dirt from Bludhaven’s construction yard clinging to his leather jacket, wishing his helmet was here if only so he could hide behind it. But, he wasn’t even the Red Hood right now, just Jason Todd. He was stopped short by Joker’s knife held to his throat. 

“I didn’t kill you well enough last time - this time I’m going to _keep_ your dead corpse and see what we can _work out_!”

Jason’s throat was dry and he felt like throwing up but the least he could do was glare down the demented clown till the end, so he focused on doing that much. 

Couldn’t move. Joker was too fast - any escape attempt would be noted and lethally punished before he could do anything. No one was coming to help him. He… there was no way out of this. None at all.

  
  


* * *

Dick’s eyes widened as he crouched behind a combination of dirt and scrap metal. Black shoes scuffled the dust. The piercing cold of his gun weighed like an anchor in his hand. 

Jason, shrunken by the distance, glared defiantly into what must be Joker’s maniacal gaze. He probably would have noticed Dick, if he weren’t so sure he was going to die. 

Joker was hunched over Jason… even the slightest disruption and Jason would die. Even if Dick were to shoot the clown through the skull, it wouldn’t be enough. He was too close, too fast, too unpredictable and too spasmadic. 

Maybe if he had his gear. Maybe if he were Nightwing he could pull some trick out of his bag, some fantastic last-ditch all-or-nothing-scenario doomsday device and Joker would turn away long enough to be darted or distracted enough for Jason to… there was no point in wondering. 

Nightwing wasn’t here. 

Officer Grayson was. 

The metal grew wet with the slick of his palms. 

He couldn’t reveal himself. Couldn’t injure Joker, certainly, couldn’t startle him couldn’t kill him… would he kill him? For Jason, as an officer of the law? Bruce wouldn’t, Bruce would never but this was Jason. Not even Red Hood, just Jason Todd, maybe not innocent, but a person in need of saving, Dick’s brother in need of saving, on Bludhaven ground… 

Joker laughed, and Dick jerked, fingers tightening around the metallic dwarf star in his hands. 

Dick heard the faint _thud_ of Jason’s head striking twisted metal behind him, his body twitching but mind surely lost to the whirling haze of blunt force trauma. 

Joker reared back, knife dramatically drawn above his head as soul-piercing cackles ricocheted off so much unfinished rubble. 

* * *

Jason’s head screamed and whirled as the blur of color above him elongated, shining glinting steel glinting against cloudspecked blue sky. 

And then his eardrums exploded. Jason gasped and flinched in on himself as reality was ripped apart by a terrible sound and the solidifying color standing over him weaved, a little. The glinting metal tumbled DOWN Down down and so did the white man standing over him. White as death. 

There was a _thudding_ and Jason forced himself to scramble upwards, a little, head ringing but clearing, eyes disbelieving, pant legs and boots specked in blood. 

Slowly, unbelieving but desperately curious, his eyes raised, and there was Dick. Still frozen with his gun in his hands, and hair dangling over one eye. He came to life like he was a wind-up toy; bit by bit, gun lowering to hang by his side, footsteps halting and jerking, a completely different man than Jason had ever known. 

Dick didn’t turn his full attention to his brother, still sprawled on the ground, struck dumb and staring. He knelt beside Joker’s corpse, leaking that long coveted blood into the dust that darkened his chalk-white corpse-white skin, and pressed two fingers to the neck. 

Given the hole in Joker’s forehead, Jason thought deliriously that it was a somewhat redundant gesture. 

“You killed him.” They’re the first words spoken in this strange new reality they live in now, and maybe Jason should have come up with something more appropriate, but he’s stuck on this, now. 

“He was going to kill you.” Dick looked up at Jason, running over Jason’s battered body with his eyes. “I’m an officer of the law. I’m supposed to protect people in my city.” Dick’s eyes raised to lock into Jason’s. “I swore an oath.”

Jason’s throat still feels dry. “That’s not the only oath you swore.”

Dick’s face darkens, and his lips tug downward, and shadows hang over his eyes. “I would do it again.”

Jason nods, finally sitting up, and keeps nodding, and starting to grin. “Ding _dong_ , the witch is _dead_ ! Dead as a… _doornail_!” 

His smile flickers over his face, on and off and less and more, and Dick looks grim and very alone. 

“Dick, you were…” Jason gestures meaninglessly with his hands, grin coming full-on, now. “You were great!” And _this_ is the Dick Grayson Jason had always known he could be! The guy who was willing to _fight_ for his family, the one who really _did_ love the street kid he called younger brother even if they hadn’t met under the best of circumstances. 

_This_ was the real Dick Grayson! Not bogged down by Bruce’s blind zealotry, not pandering to the almighty Batman’s every whim! 

Jason leaned forward, grin taking over, now. Sure, it had been hard! Sure, Dick would probably feel terrible, but he’d done it now! He didn’t regret doing it! Jason reached out to grasp Dick’s shoulders, beaming at his older brother. 

“And, hey, you know Bruce will forgive _you_ eventually, and even if he doesn’t, you have me!” Jason’s gaze grew more earnest, as Dick’s expression remained stoic and shuttered. “I’m gonna be there for you, okay! We’ll both be black sheep, now!”

Dick’s face doesn’t change, and Jason’s chest twinges with some unexpected emotion. “Hey, they’ll take you back. You didn’t break the law; Nightwing didn’t even do this. You know how much B get’s hung up on technicalities, he’ll excuse you. And Timber practically worships the ground you walk on; he’ll come around.”

Jason shook his head, a little maelstrom of jumbled emotions blowing into his chest. This _was_ the real Dick, the one who really _wanted_ Jason as a brother. That meant… 

“I’m going to stick with you, okay? We’ll be together until everyone else comes around. And I won’t… try to take over the city or whatever, I told you I’d come back if you guys killed the Joker and you _did,_ you did your part. I’m back, okay, bro?”

Dick holds Jason’s gaze for a moment and nods, before a small smile twitches the corner of his lips. It’s fake, probably, but give him time. 

“The police know Joker is here. These blocks have been cordoned off. Follow me. The police will need to… take your statement.”

Jason nods. Of course he’ll stay. Dick doesn’t need to worry about his running off without giving a statement - that’s the best way they have to determine Dick’s innocence. And now that Dick’s killed the Joker, Jason can come back to the family, or at least to whoever sides with Dick, and of _course_ , Jason will help his family. Dick would do the same for him. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dick leads Jason down empty black streets, toward the tumultuous racket of a police barrier. Loudspeakers pierce the air like static, and the clamor of the press rises in a dull roar against his ears. 

Nothing feels real. Not the blacktop, not the buildings, not the gun at his hip, not the blood on Jason’s pants. Dick runs through every reality check he knows, woodenly hoping to wake up with a gasp and a jolt to try as hard as he can to put this behind him. 

It doesn’t happen, and Jason is still sneaking him glances out of the corner of his eye. There’s an adoration, a hero worship there, now, that Dick hasn’t seen in a long, long time. Not since Jason was young and hadn’t died and thought Dick was this infallible thing, this perfect son. 

Dick had missed that, but he hadn’t. He didn’t want Jason back because he had killed someone. Not only, that, but things were not going to go the way Jason thought. Dick was sure Jason envisioned some future where Dick was happy having killed someone, or at least wasn’t haunted by it anymore. 

Perhaps Jason thought Dick would lead some kind of charge where vigilantes would kill _really_ bad people. 

He would be wrong. He wouldn’t have done it as Nightwing. Wouldn’t have taken a life if the law hadn’t been for him, with him. And he would never not be haunted. 

And that wasn’t all Jason was wrong about.

No matter what Jason thought about Bruce’s inclination toward technicalities, no loophole was going to stop Bruce from hating him. From never forgiving him. 

Not unless Dick could convince Bruce beyond a shadow of a doubt that he regretted what he’d done, that he’d take it back if he could. 

Dick wasn’t willing even to try. 

It had happened. He didn’t regret it. If it gave him a relationship with Jason again… good. He wouldn’t throw that relationship away to beg to keep the one with Bruce. 

The racket got louder, and Dick and Jason approached policemen using their bodies as a barrier between the crowd and press and the street, and Dick didn’t slow down. Not even for a moment. 

A reporter shoves her microphone toward Dick’s face, eyes wide as a camera pans into Dick’s face. “Mabel Ross, Bludhaven News! Officer, that’s the man ID’d as Joker’s hostage, do you have a statement to make?”

Dick doesn’t turn around, but he can feel Jason at his back, staring forward. 

“The Joker has been dealt with, Ms Ross. He won’t hurt anyone ever again.”

Maybel’s eyes widened, and other members of the press surged ahead, but she stayed in front. “Could you be a bit more specific please? Are we to understand that you killed The Joker, Officer?”

Dick blinked, knowing, _knowing_ that, somewhere, Bruce was watching this, keywords setting off a thousand blaring alarms. “That’s exactly what you’re to understand, Ms Ross. I would have captured him if I could have, but he had a hostage. This was the only option I had that would not have resulted in this man’s death.” 

The camera and the flashing lights shifted to Jason, leaving Dick blinded and dizzy. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Not before briefings and debriefings but… but he’d _had_ to say it; couldn’t keep it bottled up; he had to tell Bruce and the world had to know.

“Is that true, sir?”

Dick couldn’t quite see, but he could hear Jason’s smile. “Yeah, that’s right! I thought my number was up, but then this fine officer of the law came to my rescue! I was gonna die, no doubt about it, but then he came and rescued me. He’s a real hero, Maybel. I can promise you that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a lot of response to this fic, much more than I'd expected. I've also had a request to keep writing it. For personal reasons, I'm not going to do that. This was something of a self-discovery story for me, and I have no intention or real interest in writing how it turns out. What I do have a lot of interest in, is what you guys think. 
> 
> So, I'm encouraging you all to write your own endings, even if you aren't writers. Whatever you think should happen next. I'd really like to read different interpretations of what comes next. 
> 
> So... write! If you don't have an account, write in the comments! 
> 
> I'm really excited to see what you guys come up with!


End file.
